2 INMATES INVOLVED IN '87 STABBING OF S.L. WOMAN DENIED PAROLE DATES

Two participants in the 1987 stabbing of a Salt Lake woman who was dumped in a remote area of Davis County and left to die were denied parole dates Friday.

Both Terry Denon Burchett, 24, and Troy Marie McCuen, 21, were told they would have to appear again before the Utah Board of Pardons. Burchett was given a December 1992 rehearing date, and McCuen won't have another chance for parole until December 1997.The pair were convicted in connection with the stabbing of Jannet Terrazas in December 1987, who was beaten and stabbed 30 to 40 times by McCuen according to members of the Board of Pardons.

Terrazas, then 29, was able to make her way to a home near the Ninth West block of Porters Lane in Farmington for help. Terrazas, who has since recovered, did not attend the hearing although her mother and sister were present.

Burchett claimed he was unaware of the stabbing until after he, McCuen and his male roommate had transported the victim from a schoolyard where the fight took place to a field near Bountiful.

He denied that he helped hold Terrazas down while McCuen stabbed her, but said he did help put her in a car trunk. He said it wasn't until Terrazas had been unloaded from the trunk and the trio had left that he realized what had happened.

Burchett said he asked McCuen if they had driven the victim to the field to make her walk back to her home in Salt Lake. "She said she had stabbed her several times and that she was going to kick over," Burchett told the board.

Convicted of attempted criminal homicide, Burchett was sentenced to a term of 5 years to life. His rehearing date coincides with the end of the first five years of his sentence.

McCuen denied reports the board had received that she bragged about the crime after her arrest. "I know what I did scared me real bad," she said, adding that her fear gave her some indication of what her victim must have felt.

She said she blacked out during the attack in the schoolyard and started to sob quietly when asked about stabbing Terrazas two additional times in the field.

McCuen told the board that Burchett and the other man involved were urging her to make sure Terrazas was dead. "I wasn't thinking about that I was trying to kill somebody," she said.

She continued to cry soundlessly while waiting with numerous friends and relatives for the board to decide her fate. McCuen's rehearing date will come after she has served 10 years in prison.

McCuen was convicted of aggravated kidnapping, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life; attempted criminal homicide, one to 15 years; and an unrelated theft charge; zero to 5 years.